Troll Halberdiers
|upkeep_cost = |num_figures = |moves = |melee = |defense = |resist = |hits = |abilities = Regeneration Negate First Strike }} Troll Halberdiers are a type of Normal Unit. This unit may be created from a Troll town, for the Construction Cost of . The town must already contain an Armory for this to be possible. Troll Halberdiers are a powerful Melee Attack unit, but their real strength comes from the amazing survivability they get thanks to Troll racial bonuses. Despite possessing only , Troll Halberdiers are still about as powerful as any other Halberdiers unit. On top of this, they have a high amount of Hit Points, far more than most other Normal Units, and the innate ability to Regenerate. As a result this unit can survive combat much more frequently, and will rapidly gain Experience and become truly threatening to a wide variety of targets. Troll Halberdiers are also exceptionally useful against enemy Cavalry, since they are able to Negate First Strike. Troll Halberdiers require an Upkeep Cost of and to maintain. Failure to pay these costs will result in the unit being disbanded automatically. Unit Properties Physical Description Troll Halberdiers are a group of tall, brutish humanoids. They have long, sharp noses, are covered in sickly-green skin, and wear nothing but tattered trousers. They carry great halberds - long wooden poles fitted with axe blades for hacking away at targets, and with a pointy steel tip for stabbing and fending off enemies. When attacked by cavalry, the Troll Halberdiers can use their halberds to dissuade any enemy head-on charge by planting them firmly into the ground facing the enemy unit. Trolls are much stronger than other humanoids, and strange magic allows them to regrow lost limbs and even to re-coalesce after being completely dismembered! Troll Halberdiers are a , containing when fully healed. Attack Properties Thanks to the racial bonus of given to all Normal Units of the Troll Race, Troll Halberdiers possess a strong Melee Attack comparable to the common Halberdiers unit - despite having fewer . This attack is strong against a wide variety of targets, and stands a good chance of piercing Fantastic Unit armor. Each Halberdier makes a Melee Attack with a strength of . This delivers an average damage output of about per Halberdier, per attack. Troll Halberdiers have fewer than other Halberdiers, but each Halberdier still has a good chance of inflicting one or more points of damage on most targets, including low-tier Fantastic Units. Defense Properties The Troll Halberdiers possess a Defense score of - just slightly better than the average for Normal Units. They can deflect about from any damage source, on average. This can reliably fend off some damage from enemy Spearmen or Swordsmen, but is unlikely to stop any serious attack. All Trolls are exceptionally healthy, giving each Troll Halberdier , for a total of in a fully-healed unit. This gives them much better survivability than the average Halberdiers, but each lost Troll figure reduces the unit's strength significantly. On the other hand, Trolls possess the ability to Regenerate (more on this below), meaning that they will slowly regain any health they lose during battle. In fact, if the army containing the Troll Halberdiers wins the battle, the Halberdiers are restored to full health and figures automatically - even if they were completely destroyed in combat! This makes Troll Halberdiers extremely good at surviving battles. As with all Trolls, the Troll Halberdiers are impressively resistant to magic, having a Resistance score of . This allows them to avert enemy Curses and Special Attacks frequently, but does not make them immune to any such effects. With Experience, the Troll Halberdiers will gradually become more resilient against ill magic. Other Properties Troll Halberdiers move at a slow , and can only traverse land tiles. The unit has no special movement properties. Like some other Halberdiers, Troll Halberdiers possess a useful combat ability called Negate First Strike. When the Halberdiers are attacked by an enemy unit possessing First Strike, the enemy's First Strike does not work at all. Instead, the enemy unit delivers its Melee Damage simultaneously with the Halberdiers, as per the normal combat damage rules. This allows Troll Halberdiers to stand up to cavalry without fear of being overrun. The cavalry cannot use its advantage as an attacker. Note of course that Negate First Strike does nothing against any other enemy Special Attacks. Regeneration One of the greatest advantage of most Troll units is their ability to Regenerate. This effect can help Trolls both during combat and on the overland map, repairing damage to the unit over time and even rescuing it from death. During combat, an injured Troll unit will regain at the end of every combat turn. If the unit is missing any , this effect will periodically restore dead figures to life as well. If a Troll unit survives any battle, it will immediately be restored to full health and figures when the game returns to the overland map view. This significantly reduces the need to heal units after combat, and allows Troll armies to keep advancing without the need to stop and recuperate. Furthermore, Regeneration can bring an entire Troll unit back from the dead automatically - after having been completely destroyed! If a unit falls in combat, but its army goes on to win the battle, that unit is then restored to life with full health and figures once the game returns to the overland map. Note that this does not occur if the unit's army has withdrawn from the battle or has lost the battle entirely. Basic Strategy Troll Halberdiers are mainly a stepping stone between the weaker Troll Swordsmen and the more powerful War Trolls. They can be seen as interchangeable with Troll Swordsmen, having some benefits in return for some drawbacks - more useful in some situations and less so in others. In most battles, both units will perform similarly. In battle, Troll Halberdiers are about as threatening as most Halberdiers - capable of going up against a wide variety of units with little fear. This is both due to the Troll Halberdiers' great strength, and to their overall survivability. With Regeneration and high Hit Points, the Troll Halberdiers can fight repeatedly before being destroyed, and may even come back after actually being destroyed. After taking any combat damage, Troll Halberdiers immediately begin to Regenerate - regaining per turn as described above. Thus, they can temporarily withdraw from combat to attempt to regain lost health and figures and then re-engage the enemy at their original strength. Try to attack only when the Troll Halberdiers have all back, to maximize their attack strength. If necessary, two or more Troll Halberdiers can take turns attacking a single target and withdrawing when weakened. This allows one unit to regenerate while the other fights, significantly increasing both units' overall performance. As with all Trolls, Troll Halberdiers are terrific when used in very large groups. Not only can they gang up on much stronger units than themselves, but as long as at least one friendly unit survives to win the battle, all dead Trolls are restored to life with full health and full figures! This means that a large army of Trolls, even Troll Halberdiers, can simply advance from one battle to the next without any need to reinforce or recuperate. It also means that Troll Halberdiers are far more likely to gain plenty of as they go from battle to battle unhindered. Troll Halberdiers perform very well against cavalry due to Negate First Strike. They should be used for intercepting cavalry units if possible. On the other hand, they are weaker than Troll Swordsmen whenever enemy Ranged Attackers are abound, but again - Troll Halberdiers can usually weather Ranged Attacks anyway, regenerate, and then proceed to kill the enemy Ranged units easily. On the other hand, Troll Halberdiers are twice as expensive as Troll Swordsmen. Arguably this cannot justify the Troll Halberdiers' usefulness against cavalry, meaning that some players will choose to completely skip production of Troll Halberdiers, and head straight towards producing War Trolls - much more expensive, but also significantly more useful. Nonetheless, any Troll Halberdiers unit that gets produced will quickly gain Experience and eventually become quite threatening. They can take on low-tier Fantastic Creatures with ease, and in large groups can destroy mid-tier Fantastic Units just as easily. Again, even the loss of many Troll Halberdiers units is irrelevant, so long as at least one survives to win the battle. Ability Overview Regeneration * At the end of its combat round, this unit regains , as long as it is not already at full health. * If the unit has one or more dead (missing) , and all remaining figures are at full health, the next will restore to life. Subsequent turns will see that figure regaining health until it is fully-healed, whereupon the next figure is restored to life, and so on. * If an army stack containing this unit wins a battle, the unit is restored to full health immediately at the end of the battle. If the unit was killed, it is restored to life and full health at the end of the battle (again, only if its army won). * If the unit is killed in battle, and its army retreats or is defeated, it is destroyed and will not regenerate. Negate First Strike * When an enemy possessing First Strike attacks this unit in Melee combat, it does not get to use its First Strike at all. * Instead of delivering Melee Damage first, the enemy will deliver it simultaneously with the defender as all non-First Striking units do. Experience Table The following table illustrates how Troll Halberdiers improve as they gain Experience. Any properties that are not listed here do not improve with Experience in any way. * To achieve this level, either the Warlord Retort or the Crusade spell must be in play. ** To achieve this level, both the Warlord Retort and the Crusade spell must be in play simultaneously. Average Damage Output The table below details the average amount of damage that each in a Troll Halberdiers unit will deliver with each type of attack, based on . It can be used in comparison to the target's Defense rating to figure out the chance of hurting that target. Acquisition Troll Halberdiers may be produced in any Troll Town. A town must contain an Armory to be able to produce Troll Halberdiers. Should a town lose its Armory, it can no longer produce Troll Halberdiers until a replacement structure is built. The Construction Cost of this unit is . Troll Halberdiers may appear for hire as Mercenaries. They may already have some Experience on being hired, and several units may be hired simultaneously. Hiring these units requires a certain cost in that depends on many different factors. Troll Halberdier Mercenaries have the same Upkeep Cost as a normally-constructed unit. Category:Units Category:Normal Units Category:Trolls Category:Halberdiers